After spending any time in Los Angeles and its greater la area it isn't hard to believe that the Strip Mall was invented in California. Sometimes when you are standing on street corners you are surrounded by them. Nail places, sushi, dry cleaning, cell phone carriers, mom and pop falafel joints. The best strip mall concentration is on La Cienega between 3rd and Beverly.
I don't frequent them. They look rundown, dirty and generally unclean. Something about being served food in a strip mall gives me the general heebs. I know I shouldn't feel that way and have heard that there are some excellent restaurants like Lou that resides in a strip mall and there is always a line outside of Mario's Peruvian Seafood on Rossmore. (which is by far the dirtiest looking strip mall I have seen. They should just bulldoze the Popeye's and Radio Shack and just put in a Mario's restaurant)
Many Californians laugh at my strip mall phobia, but is it Californian to love something so Californian?
Related exhibit: Urban Panoramas at the Getty Center
You will notice that one of the strip malls in Opie's portion of the show has recently been torn down, possibly to add more lofts to Loftopolis located along Wilshire in the Miracle mile.
My Minnesota counterpart: Dumpy Strip Malls
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